Branding Invercote paperboard towards the cosmetics industry

Branding Invercote paperboard towards the cosmetics industry

First impressions last. Iggesund Paperboard’s Invercote brand has long been the market leader in packaging board for the cosmetics industry. But with competition heating up and a growing focus on renewable materials, Iggesund needed to reinforce its position and raise awareness of Invercote’s advantages for enhancing beauty brands.

Our client.Iggesund Paperboard is part of the €1.6 billion Holmen Forest Products Group of Sweden. The company’s market-leading Invercote brand is a premium paperboard used in some of the world’s most demanding packaging applications. In particular, Invercote has long been the preferred choice for premium cosmetics brands.

Our assignment.To defend and grow its position in core markets, Iggesund Paperboard needed to strengthen its relationship with cosmetics brand owners worldwide. More than 1,000 new cosmetics products are launched each year, and Iggesund wanted to capture a bigger share. So what to focus on? Following a strategic workshop, it became clear that messaging around sustainability is often regarded as a hygiene factor and not seen as differentiating.

Market research revealed that while brand owners put significant resources into bottles and containers, they often neglect the outer packaging. But they understand the importance of the senses – powerful emotions can be aroused through interesting textures, shimmering foil, intricate embossing and more. Enhancing the customer’s first impression became our focus.

What we did.To highlight the emotional dimension that drives sales, we developed a communications concept based on the message “Your final touch is someone’s first.” The starting point was to identify characteristics of Invercote that enable innovative and elegant packaging designs with a superior look and feel – like excellent strength, accurate color reproduction and outstanding qualities for foiling and embossing. To bring the idea to life, we created three unique product packages to demonstrate each characteristic. The campaign was rolled out through evocative films, still images, website, brochures, DM, social media and other channels.